The invention relates to a process and a device for the sorting of bottles being received unsorted in crates.
It is already known to jointly remove bottles belonging to a specific type by means of an unpacking means with individually controllable gripping bells and to deposit them on a multi-track conveyor (DE-OS 25 34 183). The removed bottles are taken away by the conveyor and temporarily stored until a sufficiently great number is available, which is then inserted again into crates by means of a specific packing means. In this fashion, crates with only one type can be obtained or a bottle filling system can be fed with bottle material of only one type. However, the great machine expenditure and the large space requirements are disadvantageous, since a specific intermediate or storage conveyor and a specific packing means are required for each bottle type to be removed. In addition to this, there is the risk of disturbances due to bottles having tipped over or being jammed in the area of the intermediate conveyor, at whose end the bottles must again be sorted again into lanes so that they can be properly gripped by the gripping bells of the packing means.
The same applies mutatis mutandis to another known process and the associated device, in which, first of all, all bottles are removed from the crates in unsorted fashion by an unpacking means, reorganized to an individual rapid-speed row, checked and sorted, slowed down, stored separately and finally inserted again into crates by means of a packing means (DE-OS 29 21 640).
This invention is based on the object of providing a process and a device for the sorting of bottles with which crates with only one type can be obtained with small space and cost expenditure and smooth-running bottle transport.